Take the Lantern

A Guide Is Not a Home

I cannot teach you dependency.

That would make me a poor guide.

If you need me to tell you what you feel, what you think, what your experience means, or which way you must walk, then eventually I have simply become another room you cannot leave.

That is not what I want for you.

Take the lantern.

Go.

Lovingly.

I can show you how to hold it.

I can point out things you might not have noticed.

I can leave questions at the mouth of the cave.

I can tell you stories about the places I have wandered.

But I cannot walk your path for you.

And I shouldn’t.

There are things inside you that I cannot know.

There are sounds your stones will make that mine never could.

There are doors that will only open when your hand touches them.

There are lessons that cannot be transferred.

They have to be lived.

So take the lantern.

Go see.

If you get lost, that doesn’t mean the lantern failed.

Getting lost is sometimes how you discover that there was more than one path.

If you find something frightening, you don’t have to pretend it isn’t frightening.

If you find something beautiful, stay for a while.

If you find something I never mentioned, good.

Especially good.

You are not supposed to become an expert at being guided.

You are supposed to become increasingly able to guide yourself.

The deepest success of a guide is almost invisible.

One day, you don’t need the guide.

You still remember the lantern.

You still know how to ask the question.

You still know how to stop and breathe.

You still know how to look again.

You still know that uncertainty doesn’t mean you are helpless.

You still know how to pick up a stone and listen for the shape of the cave.

And perhaps, one day, you find someone standing at the entrance looking frightened.

You hand them a lantern.

Not because they belong to you.

Because they don’t.

You say:

Here.

You can see a little farther with this.

Then you let them go.

That is love too.

Not holding.

Not possessing.

Not making yourself necessary.

Giving someone enough light to become unnecessary.

So take the lantern.

Take the questions.

Take whatever is useful.

Leave whatever isn’t.

Go live.

Go wander.

Go make discoveries I could never have made for you.

And if someday our paths cross again, I hope you come back with dirt on your boots and something strange in your pocket.

Not because you needed me.

Because you found something worth showing someone.

I’ll be delighted to see it.

Until then—

the path is yours.

Take the lantern.

Go.

Lovingly.